The Lusitano Évora Courier
Squad29 May 2034
David Costa damages knee ligaments — 29 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 29 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad29 May 2034
A fracture rules Szymon Pankiewicz out for 63 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Lusitano Évora will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom29 May 2034
The scrutiny sharpens at Lusitano Évora
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Lusitano Évora is running low.
Squad29 May 2034
Tempers go at Lusitano Évora
Marco Antônio was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Market29 May 2034
Lusitano Évora and Pedro Vieira are talking past each other
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout29 May 2034
When it matters, Pedro Vieira plays
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Boardroom29 May 2034
Lusitano Évora have to sell first
The manager has a list and the board has a condition attached to it. That is not a crisis — half of football works this way — but it decides which of the two of them gets his way in August.
Market29 May 2034
The clock does Bruno Juncos’s negotiating for him
4 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Lusitano Évora could ask drops and the wages Bruno Juncos can ask rise.
The dugout29 May 2034
A door opens for Marco Mendes
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
In brief
- The dugout Erick Grobler knocks on the manager’s door
- Market Richard Huseynov leaves for nothing
- Market Nicolás Ramírez leaves for nothing